Ipsos/Reuters poll: Obama beat Romney in final debate by 16%

An Ipsos/Reuters post-debate poll published Tues., Oct. 23 shows respondents favored President Barack Obama as winning the third and final presidential debate. Forty-seven percent said Obama won the debate while 31 percent said the same of Mitt Romney.

The Oct. 22 debate in Boca Raton, Fl., veered off into many topic areas but centered on foreign policy. When it came to the approval of how each candidate views the issue of violence in the Middle East, according to the poll 45% approve of Obama's stance while 39% disapprove. Meanwhile, 39 percent say they approve of Romney's stance on violence in that part of the world and 34 percent disapprove.

Presidential daily tracking poll

Ipsos/Reuters called the poll a "daily rolling tracker" and said that means they "conduct 300+ interviews a day, with occasional ‘boosts’, and aggregate data from the previous 4-5 days. The sample overlap that occurs as part of this process means that day-to-day changes will be incremental rather than large."

The first debate was widely considered to have been won by Mitt Romney while the second, considered to have been much closer, was more often given to Barack Obama.